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Question: How stupid is Sarah Palin?
Answer: We do not have the technology to measure it. It may even be infinite.

Sarah has expressed the concern that media criticism of her hateful, disingenuous (or more frighteningly perhaps heartfelt), silly and distorted appeals to racism, hatred and fear amounts to an attack on her rights under the first amendment.

Palin told WMAL-AM that her criticism of Obama’s associations, like those with 1960s radical Bill Ayers and the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, should not be considered negative attacks. Rather, for reporters or columnists to suggest that it is going negative may constitute an attack that threatens a candidate’s free speech rights under the Constitution, Palin said.

“If [the media] convince enough voters that that is negative campaigning, for me to call Barack Obama out on his associations,” Palin told host Chris Plante, “then I don’t know what the future of our country would be in terms of First Amendment rights and our ability to ask questions without fear of attacks by the mainstream media.”

If anything, Palin has this exactly backwards, since one thing that the First Amendment does actually guarantee is a free press. Thus, when the press criticizes a political candidate and a Governor such as Palin, that is a classic example of First Amendment rights being exercised, not abridged.

This isn’t only about profound ignorance regarding our basic liberties, though it is obviously that. Palin here is also giving voice here to the standard right-wing grievance instinct: that it’s inherently unfair when they’re criticized. And now, apparently, it’s even unconstitutional.

Sarah Palin, day after day and sentence after sentence, demonstrates a frightening degree of ignorance and a shockingly stubborn ability to both parade that ignorance and cling to it despite the facts.
She’s been bluffing her way along with nothing more than a wink and a wave, waiting for the chance to wow us in the talent portion of the program.
I’m taking bets she loses the governorship of Alaska first opportunity and moves her family to some religious, snake-handling backwater in a southern / fly-over state for a run at Congress.
There’s a back half to the wager, as well: Following the Congressional election (which she narrowly loses to some guy named Cletus), and with sales in the Arctic Cat franchise plummeting, she opens a roadside tourist trap where kids can have their photos taken with Sarah for a small donation (which also gains admission to the tent revival meeting out back there where Palin there will also lay on hands and drive out yer witches and demons also for another small donation there also).

Less than 100 hours to the end of having that blithering plastic Caribou Barbie insult to reason on my television. Good thing…my patience is about down to its last fuckin’ nerve.

One Response

I knew she wasn’t too smart the very first time I saw her in action without even having to hear her say anything at all…Of course though, that was yet another time that I wasn’t under any medication, so I guess that is not saying much.